A Video for Refugee Week

Racism is back-Yeah, I had noticed

The irony of it all. While UKIP goes to great lengths to deny that it is a racist party and politicians run scared of accusing UKIPpers of being racist, racism is found to be alive and kicking. No one dares utter its name but it exists as a counter-political and socio response to the unemployment and housing problems. In a survey by British Social Attitudes of 2,000 people a 30% level of racism was found to exist.

I don't need a survey to tell me or confirm my everday life experiences. It's in the small look thrown my way, an odd comment which reaches my ear when it isn't meant to and the narrowing of career choices which are explained away based on other factors (which don't affect OTHERS the way it does to someone like me). The person at the receiving end of racism bears responsibility for proving or disproving any complaints made and, often, is discouraged from saying anything because the dominant embedded response is to counter-accuse the victim by labelling them 'paranoid'.

Racism has now become a part of politics. Questioning the levels of immigration isn't wrong but stigmatising those from certain countries and discriminating against certain characteristics is. By tying immigration with politics it becomes nationalistic to be racist albeit by stealth but it happens. As an Asian woman I face a double 'whammy' - racism and gender prejudice. I wonder how many 'whammies' disabled people face or even refugees for that matter who seem to be viewed as the lowest form of life that must be kept away from nation boundaries at all cost? 

Something to make you laugh on a Monday evening

The Last Message from Jesus on the Cross

Who is the ant-christ??

Is Easter About The Golden Goose?

Silly as my title sounds that is what, apparently, many children think Easter is about. It simply beggars belief that an established and institutionalized religion which celebrates only three nationally observed events (Good Friday, Easter and Christmas) should fail to have these understood by the children of this country. 

According to a YouGov survey conducted for the Bible Society, one in three children aged 8 to 15 do not know why we celebrate Good Friday and one in four do not know what Easter Sunday is about. Take away the chocolate eggs and I wonder whether these children would even know that their school holiday is being timed around a religious event? 

I am no child psychologist but I am a mother and it doesn't take a million miles worth of nurturing to work out that children are high receptive to chocolate. Children are chocolate eating monsters and cannot concentrate on more than one thing. This means that they cannot associate Easter eggs with anything more than, well, chocolate. When deprived of chocolate they do concentrate. The solution? 


Instead of chocolate Easter eggs perhaps supermarkets/shops could fill their shelves with religious paraphernalia carrying messages such as,  'You are having a school holiday because Jesus died on the Cross' or 'You are not at school because Jesus rose again on Sunday'. This may still not work in relaying the message because it does not contain chocolate but this way, at least, we can say that we tried. This would be a more satisfactory 'nothing' outcome than the status quo. 

Subject: CHURCH LADIES BULLETIN - a joke

 

They're Back! Those wonderful Church Bulletins! Thank Goodness for the church ladies with typewriters. These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced at church services:

 

  

 The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
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 Scouts are saving aluminium cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children. 
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 The sermon this morning: 'Jesus Walks on the Water.’ The sermon tonight: 'Searching for Jesus.'
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Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
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Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help. 
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Miss Charlene Mason sang 'I will not pass this way again,' giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
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For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
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Next Thursday there will be try-outs for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
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Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days. 
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A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
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At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice.--------------------------
  
Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
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Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
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The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility. 
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Pot-luck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.-------------------------- 
  
The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon. 
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This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin. 
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The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
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Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM . Please use the back door. 
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The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM .. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
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Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance. 
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And this one just about sums them all up
 The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: 
'I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours.'